


on confronting the dragon in the room

by doublejoint



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29166288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: “Grima’s not you, though,” Corrin says.“Isn't he?”
Relationships: Gimurei | Grima & My Unit | Reflet | Robin, My Unit | Kamui | Corrin/My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Kudos: 8
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	on confronting the dragon in the room

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 2 of the February Ficlet Challenge: Meteor

The magic Robin wields from her tome is meteoric, though she’d never describe it that way herself. She takes pride in her subtlety, placing papers just so on the table or parting her hair down the center, perfect to the strand, sleight of hand, sneak attacks. She’s good at that. But when she wants to be seen, she’s magnetic, a rush of wind like a comet coming straight by Corrin’s face, turning Corrin to her and only to her.

“You’re just imagining things,” Leo says.

Camilla laughs. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

“Of course it’s not,” Leo retorts.

Corrin bites her lip. It is very real; it’s not just her imagination; it’s Robin. Her feelings might have something to do with that (or more than just something), but hadn’t this impression started before that? Tome users are all quite impressive, including Leo, and the tome-wielding other versions of Camilla who pass in and out of this realm. (She might not count the version of herself among them; perhaps that’s just the strange sensation of seeing someone who’s just a bit off-center from her, without a sword or a dragonstone, perched on a wyvern above the ocean waves.) Her siblings don’t quite understand what she’s saying, and it’s more likely a failure of communication on her part than on theirs. And yet.

* * *

“Isn’t it strange to see other versions of yourself?”

“How so?” says Robin, tilting her head.

“It’s like something’s a little bit off, so you can’t focus on their feelings or their different experiences or impressive skills.”

“Hmm,” says Robin. “Well, so many of the other versions of me are...quite unpleasant.”

“Sorry.”

Robin nods.

“Grima’s not you, though,” Corrin says. 

“Isn’t he?”

There’s an edge in Robin’s voice, unintentional. Now, in the middle of a walk, is not the time for such discussion, but Corrin still presses on, unable to stop herself, from momentum or gravity or some other force.

“Just because he shares your body--that doesn’t mean this you is the same.”

“I wonder,” says Robin. 

The explosion never comes. The fight never boils over, and Corrin’s momentum falls out from under her. Her free hand, at her side, not carrying her sword, remains empty, and Robin shifts her tome into the one that would hold it. Corrin’s eyes sting, but she bites her lip and looks not away, but forward, down the path.

* * *

As luck would have it, Corrin is put on a team with Grima the next afternoon to practice in the training tower. He’s already muttering something about puny worms in Robin’s voice, something far more off-putting and strange than seeing her own hands holding a different weapon. It’s not a comparable situation, really. 

Not that Robin was wrong to make the comparison; of all the things she must be feeling, the drag this must be putting on her is both obvious and understandable. And, in flashes, Grima looks like Robin, moves like Robin; Corrin sees the motion of those arms, perhaps in muscle memory, and then turns her head to see bared teeth and hands clutching, greedy, at a dragonstone. If anything, this is the opposite of Robin; rather than a meteor Grima’s a slow implosion; rather than attracting Corrin’s gaze, she can’t look at it. It’s all wrong. 

How could anyone look at that and see more than a passing resemblance to Robin? Or worse, that it is her? Even if he will be her, or attempt to be, in some branching future, what of all the other paths that lead to something brighter? What of this one? 

Their archer and their axe user have been knocked out, and their two remaining foes are both lance users. It’s a good thing, Corrin supposes, that she’s using her dragonstone and not her sword. 

“No type disadvantage,” Grima says, and it is a thought that Robin would have, but she’d never say it like that, in that sneering tone and in those words.

“I suppose not,” says Corrin. “Do you have a preference on which to take?”

“Giving me first digs?”

“I can handle either of them,” says Corrin.

Grima snorts, derisive. Corrin attacks the cavalier, on her left. Perhaps she should have waited for the Summoner’s directive, but she definitely won’t wait for Grima. Though, as with many things, Robin is quite right. Unpleasant is the perfect word for him.

(“I apologize,” the Summoner says later. “I should have known not to put you with Grima.”

“We won, didn’t we?” Corrin says--though she does appreciate the apology regardless.)

* * *

The stars are particularly bright from atop the castle, the window lights below them too dim to make much of an impression from this angle. There’s no moon tonight, and the stars are particularly stark against the sky, an endless well, a pit that even without flying Corrin feels she could reach with her hands.

“I thought you didn’t believe in fate,” Corrin says, still looking at the sky.

She hears Robin shift beside her; when she looks, she sees that Robin has been waiting for her to do so. If it’s a prediction, a set trap, for now Corrin doesn’t mind falling into it.

“I don’t,” Robin says. “But aren’t certain things inevitable?”

“Maybe,” says Corrin. “But would you stop trying if you knew they were?”

“Probably not,” says Robin. 

“See? That’s not like Grima at all.”

(She will not talk around it any longer; that may be Robin’s way when it comes to some things, may be the polite way, and she may cut into her hands running them up the wrong way on the scales, but she has to. Not because of fate, but for the same reasons that Robin has to keep trying.)

“You’re right,” says Robin. 

Corrin leans her head on Robin’s shoulder. Her hair blows in the wind, across her face and Robin’s, and Robin tucks it behind her ear. And then, again, when the lock of hair escapes. After that, it stays in place, until they get up to go in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
